DeeEmm

Pragmatism in code

DeeEmm AKA Michael Percy is an industrial software engineer specialising in language based programming. A long time supporter and contributor to the open source community, he can mostly be found tinkering about creating web sites and writing code for various CMS platforms as well as maintaining several websites of his own.

Once again it is that time of year where most of us will make the resolve to change something for the New Year. Usually this ends up with failed attempts and frustrations with only some being lucky enough to follow through.Well - it is coming up to one whole year since I gave up smoking :) I guess this time round I was one of the lucky ones - although I didn't give up on New Years Eve - it was more like mid January. Maybe this is why I was successfull? Who knows? (If I did I would have spent the past year marketing my 'how to give up smoking' book).But now it's time for me to make some more promises to myself - this year my biggest goal is to get a little fitter (I managed to put a few pounds on in the process of giving up smoking), a hard task for most - hopefully I can apply the same determination to this as I did to giving up smoking last year (In a way I almost feel that now I've managed to give up smoking I can achieve anything).A much harder task to acheive will be getting DMCMS V0.8 into a state where it is ready to release - this is however one of my New Years Resolutions.Looking back over the past year a lot of progress was made on the development of DMCMS in the first 6 months - the whole project was made public on Sourceforge (there have been nearly 600 downloads to date from the Sourceforge site), it has been targetted by various hackers exploiting vulnerabilities in the code (which I see almost as an honour - lol), it has been promoted on various websites and it has continued to provide the basis for most of the websites that I create / manage. Unfortunately the latter part of the year provided no further releases due to other commitments.My commitment for 2008 is to get the Version 0.8 release finished so that it can be made public - The biggest part of the V0.8 release is the user management features. The decision to integrate user management into DMCMS was taken earlier in the year and it has proven to be quite a bit more work than originally anticipated. The current test releases have a functioning user management system that provides user registration and user commenting for registered users. The plan for the final V0.8 release is to also include a permissions system so that access can be restricted to created pages.Currently the permissions system allows users to be split into three different categories -

These user categories are mostly to deal with the commenting system - moderators can be made to carry out moderation functions but thier access to other admin functions is completely restricted, Administrators obviously have access to do anything and Users have to be logged in to be able to post (therefore they have to be registered).No Guest posting is allowed as this will most probably just event in a lot of unwanted spam. User registration involves confirmation by email for account activation. I have also added captcha integration using the reCaptcha API for added anti-spam security - this may or may not be bindled with the release - I'm not sure at the moment - I personally think it's great but I also have to consider the added complexity it presents to the user setting up a DMCMS installation.The [currently] limited user account types will have to be expanded to provide access control to created pages, it is most likely that this will be expanded to customizable user groups. This route is almost a definate as it fits in well with another project that I am currently undertaking where I need to provide a seperate area for each logged in (subscribed) user - the ability to be able to create unique groups will allow me to be able to assign a group to each user. I can then create a page specifically for each user where access is only granted for the group associated with the user. Fully customisable user groups also allows the end user to choose a name for the groups that best suit thier site.

This method of access restriction works well, as a user can be made a member of many groups, meaning that access can be infinately complex. I may also add a timed function so that users can be made a member of a particular group from / until a specific time, this is something that I will need to do for the other project I am working on as paid subscriptions will be required, it seems logical to also include the features develped for my other projects in DMCMS too.

My other New Years Resolutions relate to other projects that I need to finish - I currently have a web based project that is in the initial stages of development, a desktop application that is 25% of the way through, a WM5 application that needs rescuing (it was finished but then a hard drive failure has meant that I lost some files) and an idea for another web based project. All of these projects (with the exception of the last one) need to be finished within the next few months, fortunately the web based project largely depends on DMCMS V0.8 so it is likely that this will cause the next DMCMS release to be pushed along nicely.

Regular readers would remember my look into IDE's / Programming Editors for the Linux platform from the last post. My main reason for this was to try and find something to replace Ultraedit Studio which has been my weapon of choice for coding for the past 7 or 8 years. Well, I've possibly found a better alternative - running Ultraedit 'natively' on Linux!No, unfortunately IDM have not decided to port UE for Linux (although more on that below...), I have discovered Wine. Wine is an application layer that allows Windoze applications to run on Linux by allowing access to dll files.The Wine website has an application database that lists applications tested with Wine, this ranges from applications like UEdit to PC based games. There are several entries listed for Ultraedit - namely different versions. There are some reports that ftp functionality does not work or is limited but generally it appears that Ultraedit functions fine. The Database entry can be viewed HERE and the Wine Home page can be viewed HERE

Installation of Wine in Ubuntu is easy - simply choose Wine in the Synaptic Package Manager. Wine is also available for other flavours of linux, with installation options to suit each.

After installing Wine, you will now need to download a copy of Ultraedit to your linux box. I've chosen to download and install Ultraedit Studio. Installation involves setting the exe file to open with Wine - this can be easily done by right clicking on the file and choosing 'open with other application'.

A bit of a tip - I found that if I chose the custom installation it would fall over trying to register wodCertificate.dll - wheras choosing the typical installation had no problems.

A week or so in and I am really digging my Ubuntu installation, so much so that I'm almost regretting spending the cash on the new laptop - Installing Ubuntu on my old Dell Latitude has speeded it up end - it's now a much more useable machine. So far I have only had one issue with the Ubuntu installation - I've not yet been able to get WEP authentication working on wireless - the wireless card connects to non-secured networks no problem - but doesn't connect to WEP secured networks. Anyways - it's not a major issue and I'm sure I will sort it out in time.

EDIT: I reconfigured my router to use WEP Open Authentication and now it works!

I've decided to transfer over my web development onto the Ubuntu machine - I figure that if I can manage to comfortably use ubuntu to write code then I will junk my copy of Windoze Vista on the new laptop and make the jump over to linux permanent. The few programs that I need to run in windows can be run inside of VXWorks.My biggest issue is finding a replacement of Ultraedit - I've been using Ultraedit (Studio) for about the past 7 years and have found it hard to move away from using it, it simply has too many usefull features that many other editors do not. In the past I have tried many different open source editors for the Windoze platform but none quite hit the mark (I use Notepad++ on my work machine as they are too tight to cough up for a copy of Ultraedit). Linux appears to be no different.The main 'advanced' features I use for editing are syntax highlighting, function lists, bracket matching, project management, cvs integration, column editing, find / replace in files and php syntax checking.

I mainly use Uedit Studio for my web development - PHP / HTML / CSS, however it does get used for more specialist programming endeavours such as robot programming and so things like compiler integration is very handy.

A recent hard drive crash ended up in me treating myself to a new laptop. Somehow the hard drive on my old Dell decided to just... well... stop working. A bit strange to say the least - the hard drive was less than a year old and hadn't really seen any rough use. But anyhows - I used the whole fiasco to talk myself into replacing the whole laptop with a new one (but of course bought a replacement H/D to revive the Dell)With my new machine pretty much installed and up and running, with the exception of a webserver to my taste (I've been playing with Ulimate Server - a slim php/sql distro that runs from a USB stick but it doesn't work with my syntax checker) I decided to get the Dell up and running with linux.After looking into the current range of Linux distro's I decided to give Ubuntu a go as it seemed like the least painfull route to getting it up and running. I have previously used Fedora but had a lot of trouble with wireless drivers.So far I must say that I am very impressed with ubuntu and the ease of installation. (I'm typing this from Firefox in ubuntu right now ;) ). everything has worked pretty much right out of the box. I've enabled Beryl (the expose style task switcher) and am currently setting up the avant window manager (a mac icon dock clone).Other software will get installed in time - I'm already happy using open office and gimp the only program I need to sort out is a decent text editor...I'll keep you posted of the progress.

Regular visitors to the site will notice the sudden shift in editorial content on the front page. This used to be the space where info and download links for my open source CMS project was displayed, that is until now...I originally registered the site for the CMS and have used it as both a testbed for new CMS code and as a platform from which it is aupported and served. The change in focus is largely due to other developments now taking a larger protion of my time away from the CMS, and a descision to free up the DeeEmm name association from being solely associated with the CMS.The name DeeEmm is the phonetic spelling for DM, which is in turn an acronym for an old nickname of mine. I used to use the name (and still do of course) as a psuedonym under which I program. Nowdays my identity is much less of a secret than it was way back when I first assumed the DeeEmm nickname but old habits die hard.Hopefully this page will develop into my personal blog and include news about tech stuff that I'm working on. (Yup - I know - just what the world needs is another blog) In a sense it is also a massive advertisement for myself to the rest of the world and can potentially be used as a platform from which to offer my services - for that reason alone it needs to be at least jazzed up a little as it is just a little dull :)Work on the CMS is still continuing, the bugfix for the SQL injection vulnerability has been implimented in a number of test sites and will be rolled out soon. Version 8 is still on the horizon, there are still a number of items to fix up but it is basically operational. I have a live version 8 site up and running at the moment and all appears to be well. The site was successfully updated from version 7 using the update function and will be used to test out the remaining bux fixes and features before the next release.My main focus with the CMS at the moment is to get the user management system completely up and running - at present it is functional but wholely untested. The addition of the user management system was a decision made some time back, it has meant that the final release has been delayed quite considerably but it has also proven to be a sound decision due to the demand from a number of current projects to have user management functionality.One such project requires a subscription based access restriction system to be employed - hence my current focus on getting stuff to a point where it is functional. The same project also requires ecommerce functionality, but I doubt that this will make it's way into the open source release.Anyways....This is more than enough rambling from me, I have real work to do - specifically getting the commenting system tested - that way some of you folks reading this can comment.DM.

A recent hard drive failure has forced me to purchase myself a long overdue new laptop. I ended up purchasing a nice Asus F3. The machine is a lot better than my old Dell 505 which has served me well for the past four years but unfortunately came installed with vista. A long time user of Dell products, I decided on the F3 as it has a very similar feel to the 505, which after struggling with my Toshiba Tecra at work was very important to me (the tecra has a number of really annoying features / non-features such as no right hand control button, windows button at top of keyboard, lack of bluetooth etc etc...)The spec of the machine is much better than my dell and should see me ok for the next few years.Originally I had considered changing to macs but the extortionate price of the macbook pro gave me trouble justifying it. My next choice was very obviously Dell, but as I really needed to pick something up this weekend I was left with little choice than to change manufacturer.Being a writer of open source code I decided that it was also long overdue to replace my aging office suite with a better and open source version - especially as I dont think my old version is compatible with vista.I've tried open office before - it came bundled with a fedora installation that I installed and I also installed / uninstalled it from my old laptop. this time though - I've decided that I will not give in to the pressure of installing office instead.Browsing duties go exclusively to Firefox of course, but with the addition of Internet Exploder / Opera and now Safari for testing purposes. Unfortunately the ieolas standalone version of IE6 no longer works :((deja vu)Another product that I've downloaded is netbeans - an open source and cross platform IDE supporting multiple languages. I've yet to use it and so cannot tell if it can replace visual studio express for me - I will keep you all posted.I previously used sharpsoft but ended up replacing it with visual studio express as it was a little too buggy.I'm embarking on a project to develop a desktop app - its a basic data handling and reporting app - I'm tempted to use the java portion of netbeans to write this - both as a test of the IDE and also to end up with a x-platform app.Another change for me is the adoption of Thunderbird as my email client - this coupled with the lighting calendar plugin has me pretty much set. This combo allows meeting requests to be sent to outlook clients with no porblems.All I need to do now is get push working with my windows mobile PDA when it gets back from the repairers and I can finally junk using the works SBS :)

I recently discovered a Pocket PC PHP server called PocketHPH. PocketHPH is available from MobileLeap and runs on various platforms including the WM5 that my JasJam runs. Also included is SQLite3 support to allow you to run dabase based php developments.You might wonder what use running a server on your Mobile phone would be, from my point of view it could allow me to work on DeeEmm CMS development whilst on the road without needing to take a laptop with me, although I'm not sure that it would run in it's current configuration. Currently I have it loaded up and am using it so that I can test the output of DeeEmm CMS on a mobile device whilst configuring the mobile css file.Pocket HPH is free for non commercial use.You can download it from http://mobileleap.net/hph/

Whilst on the subject of programs for Windows Mobile 5 I should also mention a few other apps that I find invaluable.

Minimo is a miniture version of Mozilla that is far better than the Internet Explorer that came with my JasJam. Amongst other things it includes tabbed browsing.

Minimo is available free for downbload from http://www.mozilla.org/projects/minimo

I took delivery of my Active Home X10 starter kit yesterday. The kit is the 7 peice version that includes the Computer interface, appliance outlet, lamp outlets, bayonet fitting, radio receiver and remote control. As I already have the mControl demo installed on my laptop I decided to try and get control of at least one light. I fitted the bayonet adaptor into my hallway light and then plugged the radio receiver into a socket outlet. Using the remote I could easily trigger the appliance adaptor built into the radio receiver; by pressing '1' and then 'on' I heard a satisfactory click as the relay clicked on and off, however pressing '2' and then 'on' did not switch the light on as expected - that is until I realised I needed to obviously leave the light switch in the on position - D'OH!In less that 5 minutes I had a working system - I could now turn the hall light on and off from anywhere in the house and garden (for what pupose I'm not really sure). The range on the remote control seems very good - I now have it plugged in at one one of the house and can use the remote from the other with no problems.So now for the tricky part - getting it to work from my PC. I put the batteries in the pc adaptor and plugged it in, I then run the comms cable from the adapator to the comm port on my laptop (the unit I received is the serial version - a USB version is also available).With the connections done I opened up the mControl demo. I created a zone for the Hallway and added an LM14 device as it did not have an LM15 calling it Hall Light. After I saved it I clicked on the button to turn the lamp on and hey presto - the light went on!!! So far so good - this only leaves one thing left to test - My JasJam smart phone. I have a static IP address as I host some web sites on a home server which is great for accessing computers whilst i'm away from home. Its also possible to use some kind of service if you have a dynamically assigned address that allows you connect to your home server, but I haven't used this before. Before I could use the remote interface I created a rule on my firewall to pass port 29990 through to the IP address of my laptop, I then navigated my JasJam's broswser to http://myipaddress:29990/mobile.aspx I was pleasantly surprised to see the zone I had created with the hallway light in my browser, I could easily turn the light on and off with a surpringly quick reaction time of only a second or two.mControl rocks!!! - it worked right 'out of the box' with no fancy configuration required, the mobile remote access is also great - not only is it included with the package its easy to use and has well thought out controls for the small mobile screen.I am more than happy with the whole system (well - based on installing one light I am - lol) its easy to setup, use and the mControl software is worth every penny. I must admit I didn't even load up the software that came with the product - perhaps this is all you may require but if your're a Media Centre user I definately reccomend mControl for the integration into the MCE interface. The browser based access is also great - I tried this on a small 8" touchscreen which will be the permanent access point for the whole home automation system, the layout of the mControl interface works great at this size.All I now need is for the rest of my X10 parts and the Micro PC to turn up

Regular visitors may remember me mentioning that I had been looking into home automation. My 'research' has lead me to invest in an x10 Active Home starter kit which includes a whole bunch of lamp and appliance controllers and most importantly a PC interface.

This and a bunch of other 'projects' have made me stop work on DMCMS for a while. Work on DMCMS will resume when I've finished the other more important stuff. Anyhows - back to my ramblings...

The PC interface comes with the Active Home software allowing you to program scheduled programs to control the modeules.

The modules themselves are controlled by signals carried through the pre existing power cables of the building, meaning that I dont need to run in a trillion new cables into my 80 year old house.

Regular visitors to the site will recal that a few weeks back I mentioned that I was working on a new project. The new project is a software package aimed at making risk assessment easier and more precise. I have decided to split the development of this package away from this site and host it on it's own site. The main reason for this is that it is intended that the package will be a commercial product and for the time being I want to keep DeeEmm as an open source site. The other reason is simply one of branding.For the time being I intend to keep everything under wraps but as usual - watch this space!!!

Interest in DMCMS has slowly been building over the past few months. This increased interest has been reflected in the number of downloads that we have been seeing. Last month saw a total of 142 downloads, bringing the all time total to 405.The 0.7.0.beta release has now been bug free for the past month, with no user submitted bugs or developer bugs being reported within this time.Progress on 0.8.0.beta has been made, with improvements added for the search engine and the translation functions. The things to do page shows the current outstanding tasks needed to be acheived before 0.8.0.beta hits the streets.0.7.0.beta upgrade

I have been considering upgrading the 0.7.0.beta release to Release Candidate 1. It is stable with no known bugs, but obviouosly lacks the additional functionality offered with the upcoming 0.8.0.beta release - namely the user management / commenting system.

Suggestions Please

With version 0.8.0.beta fastly approaching or perhaps even 0.7.0.beta being promoted to version 1, it is time to make your suggestions and feature requests known. There has been very little input from users so far and so we would like to encourage users to get involved and join the forum, to make suggestions and to post critisiscms that you have with the software.

I've been getting the framework of the safety analysis / risk assessment software laid out to get a better idea of how to put it all together. The basic underlying usability is simply to identify, score and then reduce safety related hazards. The risk assessment process is pretty straight forward, in fact I have been successfully using a risk assessment model that I previously developed within excel. Along with some different reporting options, these will both be carried over to the software futher down the track.After doing a google I stumbled across a rival peice of software. Marketed at up to $3300 per floating user license I decided to take a look to see what the opposition had to offer (mostly as it offered a free trial).The software was pretty much as expected, and lacked ease of use for both the hazard scoring and the reporting functions and nether aided the assessor or provided any reccomendations based on the results. These are the main areas where I feel this type of software should be of benefit.The hazard identification aspect was relatively straight forward with pick lists to pick from that also incorporated the ability to be able to add user defined entries. Generally there appeared to be a lot of additional 'value added' aspects but when the extra options were scrutinised they were no more than gloss and padding. In my mind, not worth the stated $3300.

This week I've been delving a little into home automation. Home automation is a topic that I have been meaning to have a look into for quite some time. Being an industrial automation specialist, the home automation sector is a very interesting topic for me as it is something that should be relatively easy to someone of my background to do.Prior to looking into home automation I had a few pre-conceived ideas of usefull facets including modulated signals using domestic AC supply as a carrier wave. It was no surprise to see that this has been adpoted as part of the X10 standard.My personal view of home automation was to utilise a home PC, equipped as a master controller with inputs and outputs to control functions within the house such as lighting and access control. Modern Home Automation system can be much more sophisticated also including audio and video streams throughout the house.Home Automation is a relatively new sector, with relatively few companies providing off the shelf systems that can be catered to suit end user needs. With the utilisation of a development medium such as Visual Basic and a simple I/O interface or perhaps interfacing to the already available X10 standard it may be possible to greatly reduce Home Automation costs.

It has been nice to have some time away from the computer this week, perhaps it is something I should do more often. The 'holiday' has given me time to think about stuff like the development that goes on with DMCMS and the amount of time that it takes up. Whilst my current goal is to get it finished off to a standard where it can be realeased as a full and final version I may shift my focus a little and spend some time developing a couple of other ideas I have, ideas that potentially can bring in some revenue.One of the ideas that I would like to spend some time to develop is a risk management package for performing, scoring and recording risk analysis. Risk analysis is the procedure through which hazards are identified, prioritsed and then actions developed to minimise or eliminate the hazard. These hazards may be many and varied and can range from general workplace safety right up to the exotic - like perhaps space exploration. In fact, wherever there is human activity, there exists the possibility of a hazardous situation potentially being able to cause injury or harm. One of the hardest things for most companies / individuals involved in risk assessment is the ability to easily score or 'rate' the hazard. There are several techniques available to achieve this but all of them leave something open to interperetation.My idea is to develop a software package to make this task easier, and provide less room for error. By removing the 'grey' from the descision making process, the task of identifiying the hazards and providing a method of risk control becomes much easer and the need for expensive consultancy can be negated.My ultimate goal is to develop the software into a saleable item, to be sold right here from this site, as after all, the site is intended to be a platform for all my works, not just DMCMS. The software would initially be available on the PC platform, with a later development for mobile devices such as handheld PC's, allowing field operatives to easily carry out risk assessments in the field without having the need for even a laptop. Collected data can then be imported into the main application back at the office when it is more convenient.The coming weeks may see little change for DMCMS as I intend to spend at least a little time developing the initial idea / structure for the application.DM.

It has been nice to have some time away from the computer this week, perhaps it is something I should do more often. The 'holiday' has given me time to think about stuff like the development that goes on with DMCMS and the amount of time that it takes up. Whilst my current goal is to get it finished off to a standard where it can be realeased as a full and final version I may shift my focus a little and spend some time developing a couple of other ideas I have, ideas that potentially can bring in some revenue.One of the ideas that I would like to spend some time to develop is a risk management package for performing, scoring and recording risk analysis. Risk analysis is the procedure through which hazards are identified, prioritsed and then actions developed to minimise or eliminate the hazard. These hazards may be many and varied and can range from general workplace safety right up to the exotic - like perhaps space exploration. In fact, wherever there is human activity, there exists the possibility of a hazardous situation potentially being able to cause injury or harm. One of the hardest things for most companies / individuals involved in risk assessment is the ability to easily score or 'rate' the hazard. There are several techniques available to achieve this but all of them leave something open to interperetation.My idea is to develop a software package to make this task easier, and provide less room for error. By removing the 'grey' from the descision making process, the task of identifiying the hazards and providing a method of risk control becomes much easer and the need for expensive consultancy can be negated.My ultimate goal is to develop the software into a saleable item, to be sold right here from this site, as after all, the site is intended to be a platform for all my works, not just DMCMS. The software would initially be available on the PC platform, with a later development for mobile devices such as handheld PC's, allowing field operatives to easily carry out risk assessments in the field without having the need for even a laptop. Collected data can then be imported into the main application back at the office when it is more convenient.The coming weeks may see little change for DMCMS as I intend to spend at least a little time developing the initial idea / structure for the application.DM.

I will be taking some time out this week to get some stuff done around the house, this means it is likely that I won't be sitting in front of my computer too much. I've been spending too much time trying to get everything finished off and neglecting my chores (which doesn't bode too well with the better half).After a quick tot-up I estimate that there are approximately 80 hours work left until the next (and hoipefully final) release is ready. There are a lot of new features planned including a full user based commenting / subscription system, reinstatement of the translation function (obviously working this time round) as well as a completely redesigned administration interface.A lot of the work has already been carried out and tested but will require further testing to make sure that it is reliable enough for release. The remaining items are either still in development or have yet to be started.The current release is hopefully stable enough that it will not cause any problems and so will likely remain as it is until the final release is ready.Some minor bug fixes have already been released and the packages updated to reflect the bugs found. As usual, if you find any errors / problems / bugs then don't hesitate to bring them to our attention, either as a Bug Tracker entry or in the forums.DM.

In my haste to get the last version released it would appear that I wasn't thorough enough with testing it to make sure everything was okay - That's Right!!!! (We've hit another bug). This one is a relatively simple one to fix and is a by-product of developing for the Linux envoironment on a Windoze machine.

The bug is simply one that it caused due to case sensitivity on some linux installations - the offending files are the language files - the ones supplied with the old package have 'capitalised' names - ie the first letter is a capital. The filenames stored in the database start with a lower case letter. Simply renaming the files will clear up the issue.

As usual the downloadable packages have been updated (a big sorry to all those who have already had a problem with them).

You may have noticed from the news flash that the DMCMS.0.7.0.BETA release has a bug in the SQL database file. This has hopefully now been sorted out - the files in the download area have been updated and an updated file is available to download should you require.The bug, whilst only a minor thing (I say this only because we are still in BETA) goes to show how difficult it is to cater for every platform and server software version. The bug didn't appear on any of my test installations that I carried out before uploading the code for public consumption but, was still there, none the less.The bug partly originated from a relic of a past version stuck in the database and partly from an error in the database backup function, I guess I need to be more careful in future.DM.

{jcomments off}Trying to get the latest incarnation of DMCMS ready for release seems to be a never ending battle. Just when I thought that I had it licked something else crops up - and guess what!! - it's yet another IE flaw / bug / idiosynchracy. After redesigning the admin interface into a nice tabbed affair that put everything on one page in an easy to digest format I then find that it doesn't work in explorer. Phah - seems to be about par for the course recently.

Now whilst this is really frustrating I wont declare to hate IE and it's odd renderings, after all, being a Firefox protagonist I am in the minority. IE is also the browser that I first discovered the internet on, so I must at least owe it something.

My day today is being spent at home, which is great as I get to spend some time trying to finish the 0.8.0.beta release off whilst heating is being installed in the house. It's also great as I am now within swearing distance of an internet connection so I can try out some of the stuff that requires connectivity to the world wide wobble (such as user registration verification).

I've decided to load the latest offerings onto my webserver at home and test everything out, first thing I wanted to do was create a new CVS branch for my source repository - pretty easy stuff. Then I check out the latest branch as a release so that I can load it onto the server and update the existing DMCMS test installation.

{jcomments off}This weekend I've been taking a look at the administration interface and how it is presented to the user. The admin interface is probably the biggest part of any CMS, even though it may actually be the least used. The age old addage is in full effect here - 'first impressions last', new users trying a CMS for the first time will be more impressed with how something looks rather than how it functions and will probably mistake an average interface for a good one if it looks the part. If the interface doesn't at least look capable, then chances are that the user will not give it more than a cursory glance before moving on to the next demo.

Part of my thinking whilst developing DMCMS was to keep everything very simple - to try and only use basic, compliant HTML / CSS and as little fancy effects and javascript as possible. Javascript has unfortunately been employed for a few functions, which I don't think is too bad, and for the most part there are no frills with the basic template supplied with DMCMS.

To try and create some kind of image to the Admin interface I have changed the way that it is presented. Some functions have been fused together and are now presented in a tabbed navigation structure. Javascript will be required to be enabled, but not absolutely necessary as the interface will still function without it - it will simply not look as good.

Bringing the different admin functions together into a more condensed interface acheives the goal of improving the first impressions factor tenfold: Rather than having to scroll down the page to see all of the different functions, the user can instantly see scope of what is controlled from within the interface.